But she added: “We don’t want to pass on stories or rumours.” She said the board would be studying the employment files of Mr Smith and the other crew members to see if there was a history of medical problems or possible drug or alcohol abuse.Iris Weinshall, New York’s transportation commissioner, said Mr Smith had been an employee of the ferry service for 15 years. However, some sources said he may have failed to take prescription blood pressure medicine which had caused him to black out. One report suggested that on waking, he may have throttled the engines, instead of putting them in reverse.A source close to the inquiry said the captain told investigators that Mr Smith “slumped forward” in a way that drove the boat toward the pier “He could have hit the controls,” said the official. Mr Smith, 53, also shot himself twice with a powerful pellet gun, into the heart and into the head. When family members arrived minutes later, they found members of the ferry’s crew already inside trying to break down the door into the bathroom. Mr Smith was being treated at St Vincent’s Hospital on Staten Island ­ the same hospital that received most of the wounded. It was unclear last night when he would be well enough to talk to officials from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which had taken over the investigation.Ellen Engleman, the board’s chairwoman, refused to speculate on what might have happened to Mr Smith at the time of the accident.

“I am in my bathroom, I slit my wrists,” he reportedly told an emergency dispatcher on the telephone. When the ferry tied up at its slip, no one at first noticed the pilot had vanished. Reports said he drove at reckless speed to his Tudor-style home in a comfortable suburb of Staten Island In his rush, he left his bag and keys, and had to break in Once inside, he locked himself in his bathroom. In the pandemonium, some passengers jumped overboard.Ashraful Hassan, a New York resident of Bangladeshi origin, said: “Things like this happen in Bangladesh, where the equipment is old and broken down, but in America it should never have happened.”Mr Hassan was waiting for news about a friend who was on board the ferry.

“I saw a lot of body parts laying around and people not moving.” Mr Johnson, a former American football player, ran for his life after the pier tore into the side of the passenger deck “The two guys behind me, they didn’t make it,” he said. “The scene was total chaos,” said Frank Corchado, 29, from Staten Island. “There was a lady without legs, right in the middle of the boat,” he said “She was screaming. You ever see anything like that?” Among those killed were nine men and one woman One of the dead was pulled from the water. “I saw a woman who had no head,” said Sean Johnson, a construction worker who was on his way home from work. The pier, and the wooden pilings that protect it, had ripped a gash the entire length of its lower passenger deck. Passengers sitting in the orange plastic seats along its windows on the right were literally cut down Some lost legs and arms A man was decapitated Another person was sliced in half.

They are an institution and one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions. On its 25-minute journey, the ferry passes the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. From its decks, the views of the harbour are free.But on Wednesday, the interior of the Andrew J Barberi ferry was a mangled mess of steel and broken timber. The captain goes over and tries to take control of the ferry and it hits the pier.” It was difficult to grasp how a ship as slow and lumbering as a 310ft-long Staten Island ferry could cause so grisly a catastrophe.The fleet of seven ungainly boats, painted a deep orange, are not just for commuting, moving 70,000 New Yorkers between the two boroughs every day. “He yells out to the pilot ­ ‘Richard,’ he yells to him ­ and he is unresponsive,” the official said “He is sitting down He’s unresponsive. Last night, he was reported to be in a critical condition at a Staten Island hospital.One official described how the captain tried to intervene as the ferry headed towards the concrete pier, apparently travelling much too fast ­ estimates put the speed at 19mph ­ and at a strange angle. And of the confusion on the bridge.The focus of the investigation will be the pilot Richard Smith, who fled the boat after it had been pushed to its normal docking slip by tugboats, and drove himself home where he attempted to commit suicide.